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Let’s see now, it started way back in the mid sixties. The keepers of the US mint realized that their offspring, those dimes, quarters and halves they hatched out, were not worth the silver they contained. So, out it came. No more silver in the coins and no more promised silver in any bank notes either.Things went along as things will until early in the 1970’s when several of our rude friends abroad decided they would prefer gold to the dollars that still promised gold upon demand.

Well! Not our gold, not a chance. Richard Milhouse Nixon, still clinging to the Presidency at that time, changed the deal. In the future our sacred dollar would not be gold backed but backed instead by” the full faith and credit of the United States Government”. Gold fugeddaboutit! So from that day forward we have been relying on the good credit of the USGov. to keep alive and in business. Good luck with that.

Okay so the silver was first to go, then the gold not long after. But the dollar kept getting weaker and those pesky metals stronger! Let’s put an end to that…but how? Even with the printing presses going flat out we learned in the 21st century there was a shortage of physical dollars! If we all went to the bank for our cash, it wouldn’t be there. How is that possible? Virtual dollars, that’s how. Those little 1 and 0 strokes floating in thin air. The mighty dollar is no longer worth the paper it is printed on.

So you won’t give me gold, you won’t give me silver, and now you won’t even give me paper. Byte this!

Five US Presidents had never been elected to public office before becoming President: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, and Donald Trump.

As to the first three; it was the considered opinion of the electorate that dispatching hordes of Indians, Mexicans, Americans and sundry others in battle did not disqualify one for the oval office. So be it. General Taylor’s brief time in office was devoted to preserving the Union in a time of many divisive slavery issues. General Ulysses S Grant’s two terms were noted for repeated financial scandals. Which brings us to General Dwight D Eisenhower who spent both time and effort in the settling of a notorious war in Korea, the byproduct of a former President who did hold prior elected office.

This leaves us with the final two, Herbert Hoover and Donald Trump neither of whom were tarnished (varnished?) with a patina of prior elected office. Immediately the red flags flutter at the mention of Herbert Clark Hoover; he of the Great Depression. Hoover was the most maligned President prior to the present one. If the term ‘scape-goat’ did not exist, it would need inventing to describe his treatment at the hands of his adversaries. They were so thorough and damning that although he was perhaps the second-most famous person in the United States after President Wilson at the time of the 1920 presidential election, by 1932 he was vilified and demeaned beyond recovery.

This was a man who had traveled and created businesses in Australia, China, Russia, Belgium etc . He is certainly the most widely traveled of all candidates, prior to obtaining the high office. His agenda was quite similar to the present occupant’s, actually. Hoover had warned President Wilson about intervention in Russia fearing a protracted US involvement. How prophetic was that! And finally, Herbert Hoover was a very rich man.

If you have seen similarities between the final two of the five who never held prior office etc.etc, they do exist. It’s far too soon to know Donald Trump’s fate. His many adversaries have started in on him much earlier in his term than Hoover’s did. He too may be visited by a Huge, to keep it in character, Depression. Maybe he already has and nobody has noticed it yet.

“It is too late to bring manufacturing back to the United States, because corporations already have shifted their supply nodes abroad, and too much U.S. infrastructure has been dismantled.” Michael Hudson, University of Missouri, 3/23/17 Unz Review

This is the most prophetic and the most damning statement of America’s future I have read in years. Without manufacturing providing nine to five, get up in the morning and go to work reality, what in hell can we offer our millions of young people as substitute? We already have a situation where older brothers and sisters, perhaps even parents in a family, have never held a real job and the younger ones face even worsening prospects.

Having a job, doing gainful employment defines a person. Forced into school, fed a litany of obsolete Americana, then let out into the bleak streets also does. This can’t continue because the urban streets offer heroin while the bucolic country lanes offer meth; little else. And please, the military or prison as their legacy will not answer, it’s been tried.

There must be something we can manufacture, something that is uniquely us, that can put our kids back to work. No it’s not a Service Economy, tried that. Nor IT, that won’t do it. Times running out folks, the center not only doesn’t hold, it no longer exists. Think hard, what is America about that we can put into a production line that we can’t import from the East? Keep in mind China has pledged to cut back on small ticket export items to reduce pollution. Got to be an answer or it’s game over.

Donald Trump is the best thing to come along, from the Mainstream Media point of view, since the Kardashians or Kaepernick. The media has made more money selling papers and air time since Trump entered the scene than they can count. Don’t expect any let up in the 24/7 Trump, Trump, Trump cadence for the foreseeable future. If he bleeds; he ledes. That’s just the way things are. Any excess, distraction or tragedy that will sell… we’ll sell it! No apologies, no attempt at balance or fairness is intended; none is offered. That’s the American Way; deal with it. Or don’t.

If you reject it, the road is rocky, the path steep and slippery and you’ll meet folks you never expected to be within striking distance of as companions. That’s the price to dampen down the gain on 24 hour Trumpish hucksterism. It can get lonely out here in outsiderville until you look back at what you’re missing. The bigly thing you’ll miss is four long years of media hype and bottom line loving care posing as information sharing. Dodging this craven onslaught of commerce pretending to be information may save your sanity.

Trump as President represents the coming of age of decades, maybe a century, of delusions of grandeur that has been foisted on the public by a system that values only creating customers or acolytes. Brilliant propaganda has rendered the lot of us unable to think beyond the narrow parameters of the American Way. But they may have gone past a danger mark this time.

The anti-Trump frenzy kindled and kept ablaze by various interested parties seems to have unhinged our people. In some sections to be known as a supporter of the President can be a source of vitriol or worse from boisterous others. A sort of home spun Red Guard has taken to the streets, the airways and public assemblies to harass or threaten Trump loyalists. No dissent from political or social norm is tolerated by these zealots whose yearning for the old status quo is palpable. Perfectly normal citizens have been rioting, destroying property and duplicating the antics of Mao Zedong’s followers in the turbulent 60’s.

The rational is similar. Unable to accept the results of the election and assist the new administration in any constructive way those interested parties continue to encourage civil unrest. The effect on a populous who have been systematically regressed to a level of near panic and fear for years is unpredictable. The ‘Russians are coming’ scare that worked in the past is thin gruel now and the perps are desparate to make it stick. A swarming hive of military procurement brass are sweating bullets to keep the loot coming. Fortunately the insanity appears to be confined at home. The targets of our animus seem to be doing just fine out there in “lesser land”.

HERE HE COMES…MR. AMERICA or is it CaptainAmerica now that he’s top brass? Maybe 21st Century Uncle Sam is best! Whatever the name…he is US. In the flesh, bigger then life. Doesn’t matter what you think or I think; he is US. And now he’s President because we produced, directed and elected him; above all others.

He’s bigly, he’s richly, he’s a celebrity and he TWEETS!, every day. Can’t get any more American than that. Why would anyone doubt his bonafides? Need to talk to the head guy in Kapowistan; no problem. He’s knows him. Did a deal once. An ARTful deal, of course. Need an overnight in South Badwasser: he’s got a place there, actually two: you have comps! What other President has done business in half the world or would even know where Kapowistan is? Tell me that!

Why is it so hard for some people to understand that DJT is us? All our dreams and aspirations were his as well. You always wanted to be a big TV star; be honest now. And a few million in hand was always in the back of your mind; truth now. Sure, sure you wouldn’t want his job for two seconds but…maybe Senator or SCOTUS, yeah. You’d make a good judge; you’re pretty sure of that.

I’m amazed that some people don’t think he has enough experience or knowledge for the job he’s got. Since when could anyone have the experience to be President without being the President? As for knowledge, the recent (three decades and counting) resident book at the White House doesn’t show much of a learning curve. Sometimes it has even been negative for learning!

That’s it. Donald J Trump is us, in spades. From sea to shining sea and amber waves and all the rest. Don’t believe it? Look in the mirror. Catch that star-spangled look. There, hold your head a little to the left, no the other left…you know. Yeah! That’s it, good old USofA, right in the eye…er,eyes. You and DJT are true blue.

The persona of Donald Trump evokes in us as a nation the same distortion of reality as a funhouse mirror at an amusement park. The universal animus and/or naiveté projected by all and sundry upon this singular individual is astounding. The nation has reacted, almost to a person, as having witnessed in this weird mirror an image of ourselves that has never before been experienced. It’s not pretty.

Not since Mao Zedong called back his out of control Red Guard, or perhaps that nastiness with Pol Pot, has the world experienced such a frenzied display of cultural distress. Apparently no American is immune to the phenomenon. Maybe it’s black magic. Maybe it’s Jungian: a projection of our flawed archetypes on a central figure who reflects back our shadow selves. Whatever it is; it’s pretty dark.

It fact, the Trump effect on us has become a Litmus Test of our soundness of mind at home and our potential actions abroad. As a people we have long been unable to view the world in any way other than as we have been conditioned for the past century. Now the unquestioned shibboleths of America’s “uniqueness and specialness” color our very lives as individuals. The propaganda couched as the American Way of Life has become so all consuming that it took just one individual to march to center stage and reflect back our carefully hidden shortcomings and delusions for the fear and loathing to begin.

.But having said that, maybe it’s cathartic and had to happen for any change to occur in our entrenched behaviors. We’ve been sleepwalking for a long time. How many pointless wars and incursions have we permitted to happen? Willful manipulation of our nation’s resources has lead to our inability to compete in the world. Why did we let this big advantage slip away? How did we get from being a creditor nation, banker to the world; to having to live from the money loaned by others?

Robert Burns lamented: (O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.) Well we have it now, finally…maybe. Just maybe, we’ll see ourselves as others see us.